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Why It's Better to Bring on a Specialist than Doing it Yourself

June 4 2018, 11:48pm

There are many tools out there, especially in the online marketing space, trying to onboard new customers with promises of ease and efficiency. Of course, no platform or tool allows for both of these benefits. Methods that are easy to use, mostly, barely scratch the surface of what should be done. Of particular interest are tools that can be effective to use, express ease, but are really quite complex underneath the hood.

Sophisticated tools like AdWords for advertising or Mixpanel for analytics are great in terms of how much can be done with them. Where they fall short on this ease-efficacy dichotomy is the ability to easily extract more value from the utility. Out of the box, tools can work well. They can meet minimum requirements like brining on new customers or tracking site visits. True value extraction comes out of a deeper understanding of how to work around the limitations of the tool.

Take, for instance, AdWords again. One can pretty easily set up a campaign with ad groups, keywords, and ads. Perhaps one begins with twenty keywords to start. Depending on the ad, time of day, amount spent, landing page, match type, etc... one may receive a potential sale or lead. More likely than not, one's efforts will fall short and/or one will spend more than they should to acquire a target customer.

Just because one can set up and use a tool doesn't mean that they should run it.

Specialists are great in this capacity, as they efficiently extract additional value. Thought about in another manner, you can hand squeeze oranges into orange juice, but a specialist will act as a juicing tool (or even electric juicer) getting more out of those oranges that were just juiced by hand.

When one has spent a lot of time learning and working with a tool, one begins to uncover its unique strengths, ways to do things more effectively, and methods for working around limitations. Value extraction is a huge benefit afforded by people who really know a platform that can take a 5% margin for a business and turn it into 25%. What's potentially more value is the ability for these individuals to mold a tool for and around existing infrastructure. One who understands the in's and out's of online advertising tools can see the linkages between platforms. Installing a Facebook pixel for remarketing on a site that has traffic driven by AdWords is a good example of this enhanced understanding.

Tools are meant to make work easier so that we can focus our time on more valuable activities. Many of these methods promise ease and efficacy when in reality there is much more complexity than meets the eye. Instead of focusing on minimal value extraction, brining on someone who fully understands a platform can help take the actual usage of a tool to that next level.

Next time a tool comes your way or you think you need one, think about how someone specialized in using that tool might be able to add value and, overall, do more with less.

Have you ever relied on a specialist before? What was your experience?

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About Kevin

• From SoCal, graduated from the University of California, Berkeley.
• Digital marketing consultant and mobile application developer.
• Specialty in using technology to create fun, engaging, and useful experiences both online and off.
• Work ethic and character like Anderson Cooper and Walt Disney.
• Fondness for new technology, digital media, and colorful things.